Kashmir: The Agony Of Conflict
Book Review By Bilal Shaheen
26 July, 2014
Countercurrents.org
Book: The Half Mother
Author: Shahnaz Bashir
Publisher: Hachette India
The life of people is solitary, poor, nasty,brutish and short,
explained Thomas Hobbes while describing the political uncertianty of
16th century England. Hobbes gave a gloomy picture of a society in the
absence of political authority- civil war, choas, unrest, anarchy. The
Kashmir of 1990's resembles Hobbes's English society in one familiar
aspect- conflict, war, fear and loss. The outbreak of popular war
against the brutal Indian state proved inconsequential and
catastrophic. The radicalization of politics altered the centuries old
social fabric and bring in place a corrogated politcal order of
disturbance, uncertianty and anarchy. Thousands perished, tortured and
disapeared in the darkness of insurgency. It was a period when
detention almost means disappearance.
In the recent past we have witnessed many bold attempts made by the
young and energetic Kashmiri writters to rettel the horrific story of
post-1990 Kashmir. These writers deplored fiction to narrate the agony
of Kashmiri's turbulant past. The growing voices who are willing to
articulate the horrors of state repression through the cathartic
medium of fiction are Basharat Pir's Curfewed Night, Mirza Waheed's
The Collaborator and many other. Shahnaz Bashir's The Half Mother is
the latest attempt to tell the heartwrenching story of those women who
lost their fathers, brothers and sons to custodial interrogation by
the Indian army, only to be found never again.
Set against the backdrop of militancy of 1990, The Half Mother is a
heartbreaking story of one womans restless, in the end a futile,
struggle for life, love and loss. The Half Mother is a story of
Haleema's ( the protagonist) search for her son(Imran) who whisked
away by the Indian army and never returns. The story begins in
serenity of Natipora in the Joo family with Ab Jaan's( Haleema's
father) tireless experiment with different jobs to secure a better
living. Apart from a firm homemoker, Ab Jaan was deeply aligned,
albiet badly affected, with the politics of his strife-ridden state.
Ab Jaan's unbriddled faith and later disenchantment of Shiekh Abdullah
reveal the growing politcal mobilisation among common Kashmiri's.
Insurgency just began to overthrew an alien political order which
inturn proved catastrophic and disturbed the calm of the valley. The
failed election of 1987 left Kashmir simmering in turf war between the
politcal rivals. Haleema's never-ending lonely existence came in the
guise of Ab Jaan's killing by Major Kushwaha. Ab Jaan's death means a
collosal loss for Haleema- a responsible guardian, a lone bread-winner
and a symphatic father. As Haleema mourning the death of his father,
came a tragic event which shattered her consciuosness between life and
death, love and loss, fear and courage. The following night army
picked up Imran, thus began Haleema's desperaiging struggle of
vailing, lonely bitting and hope and despair. The novel turns sour and
meloncholic when we see the Haleema hurtling from police station to
army camp, from the radio station to Papa 2 (torture chamber), an
unlikely flanuer in a landscape of loss. Her beauty faded in mourning,
her conscience shattered by screaming and her existence is invaded by
loneliness. Her face was a poignant reminder of the passing of time.
The poignancy of parting and seperation.
Shahnaz Bashir's language is simple, sarcastic and imagery, at its
best when it evokes the inseperate alignment of political and
personal. The dedicately drawn characters, loathsome and unpleasant
reality and discursive narrative is what makes the novel an artistic
work of fiction. Written in lyrical prose, The Half Mother is a
devastating debut novel of a Kashmiri which potraiyed Kashmir's tryst
with unfreedom. Bashir is too subtle a writer to draw an explicit
connection between the isolation of a bruised mother and the rest of
Kashmir as it enters the third decade of war that will haunt it with
catastrophic human cost. Shahnaz Bashir's novel, its vivid style,
meloncholy and one mother's stiffle resistence to power left a reader
to easily relate his life to the horrowing story so beautifully woven
in the novel.
One of the most remarkable feature of this novel is its sublime
presentation of a motherly affection being tormented by the arrogance
of conflict so adversely gripping Kashmir society. The novel, a slim
volume on personal tragedies wrought by Kashmir's unrelenting struggle
to win back freedom, is a terrific satire which speaks of common
Kashmir's daily encounter with vengeance and despair. The Half Mother
is another bold attempt by an enthusiastic voice to tell the gory tale
of Kashmir's brutal war. All in all, The Half Mother is a devastating,
deeply moving and a much needed book.
The author is a research scholar of Kashmir Politics at The Institute
Of Kashmir Studies, University of Kashmir,Srinagar. He can be
contacted at email: [email protected] and followed on twitter
@sahirbilal
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